Indian Government To Ban Use of US Email Services For Official Communications
hypnosec writes "The Government of India is planning to ban the use of U.S.-based email services like Gmail for official communications. It will soon send out a formal notification to it half-million officials across the country, asking them to use official email addresses and services provided by India's National Informatics Center. The move is intended to increase the security of confidential government data and protect it from overseas surveillance."
Frankly, I dont think the US should use gMail etc for governmental communications either.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I bet plenty
Interesting headline given the level of corruption in the Indian Government. Given that, the headline makes sense. More secrets to keep.
That they can't be the ones spying. Corrupt govt hating on another corrupt govt.
it seems like a prudent move on behalf of the indian government considering the NSA has all but said they were spying on other governments. though there is the question of what system the indian government will switch to and if it gets hacked by other governments. realistically, they should be using encryption on 100% of their emails.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
And centralize for national surveillance
Its not to 'protect the data' it's to get people to use services that they have direct access too.
Every government does this.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
USA's authoritarian, Orwellian stance is hurting American companies' ability to compete in the global market, domestic and international. It hurts the American economy.
Figure it out, this goes way beyond Obama.
This seems total sensible, after all if you let a foreign entity. on the cloud, run your email you don't really own the data and any data that you don't own is at risk. The real surprise is that it took the business world this long to realize.
Reap what you sow, Google. As an American, I can't wait until Startmail or another non-U.S. email provider provides a decent alternative. GMail's days are numbered for me.
Here we see the beginnings of real, hard evidence of just how disastrous the NSA's recent actions are to the best interests of the country.
It used to be that American IT companies were the gold standard, to the point that there almost wasn't even any pretense of competition. Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook -- American companies ruled the Internet.
And the NSA has turned that all to shit. Now, you'd have to be an idiot to trust any American company not to hand your data over to the NSA. And the NSA has most emphatically been demonstrated that it cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted with that data; just look at not only the overt corporate espionage, but the pervy stalking culture of the degenerates working there. Even if not for official policy directives, you can bet that some low-level flunky at the NSA will be placing insider trades based on what he reads in your executive's emails.
In other words, the NSA has utterly devastated the greatest industry the United States has ever created, and the very backbone of our economy. It's worse than if they had bombed all our ball bearing plants; infrastructure can be rebuilt, but trust? How the fuck are we supposed to rebuild that? ...and the corporate heads and legal departments wonder why they shouldn't have refused to play with the NSA and gone public at the first hint of this malfeasance, writs of classification be damned. Had Google insisted it be taken down swinging rather than play lapdog to the NSA, their brand would have been unimpeachable; rather, it is untouchable.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Yeah, this is true. However, if this exposure happened under GWB, he would be crucified. Quit given Obama a pass. Treat him exactly as you would have treated GWB.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Thanks Obama.
This NSA mess is not a result of anything Obama has done.
The NSA has been spying like this since it has existed. Echelon
and other signals traffic intercept arrangements have been in place
for decades.
If you actually believe that a different president will change ANYTHING with respect
to what the NSA does, you are tragically naive and myopic in a manner which is usually
seen in people who believe that Rush Limbaugh is a credible news source.
The NSA has a lot fewer legal problems intercepting foreign mail than
it does domestic.
Only now, it simply means they wont have good spam filters,
and money will now be flowing out of india to nigeria $26,000,000 at a time.
Of course India is setting up the Central Monitoring System (CMS) essentially India's version of PRISM:
Since we have to live with what was once a great nation now fallen in corruption, at least we should have some fun with it.
The old meme "in soviet union" is becoming obsolete. I suggest we start a new meme: "in nazi america".
And remember now, "war is peace".
Actually no, GWB would only have been attacked by the Left for the most part, the Right mostly would have defended GWB for doing what was needed to protect our country. The response from the pro defense politicians is decidedly mute, they are simply choosing not to defend he President, at least not very much.
These intrusions by the NSA are a lot like things that have been going on all along (note I did not say it was good). Basically the opportunity for progress on this issue is precisely because Obama is the President, the Left is naturally suspicious of police and spying, while the Right is simply suspicious of Obama. (FYI, my favorite story about this is back when GWB was in power the Left would complain, what if someone you didnâ(TM)t like had this kind of power, and all too often the Right would reply, but I trust the people on power right nowâ¦)
I disagree, in the US Copyright is automatic and thus you do own the data, any unauthorized use by the ISP's should open them up for civil damages based on unlicensed use of copyrighted material.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
No thank the lazy American public - you killed your own Democracy with as long as Im allright I dont care what the ruling class get up to.
The reality is, I expect to see more governments doing this.
With the Patriot Act and all of the revelations about the NSA spying, American companies are not things you can trust. All of the cloud services ran by US companies are covered by the same thing.
I've said it before, but when you turn your corporations into arms of your security apparatus, those corporations cease to be trustworthy.
So in a few months when US companies start feeling the pinch as people do stuff like this, when they start whining about it (and the state department starts trying to pressure those countries into buying it again) ... the only reasonable response will be "sorry, but given your current laws we simply can't do that".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"In post-9/11 America."
The Revolution was the thing that changed Russia into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the kids of the 1920s may have even had an "In Tsarist Russia" meme (at least until they wound up in the gulags)
Our revolution was 9/11. We were always at risk of becoming a surveillance state, but it wasn't until 9/11 that it became a cultural thing to say "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" with sincerity rather than irony. Because, and I paraphrase damn near every lawmaker at the federal, state, and local level, along with half the soccer moms and helicopter parents of America, "9/11 changed everything."
That was also about the time it became technically possible to acheive "In post-9/11 America, TV watches you." (Not in the sense of a camera, but the first-round of privacy concerns over TIVO and bidirectional cable boxes that were capable of monitoring real-time ratings data.)
It wasn't commies. It wasn't nazis. And it sure as hell wasn't the terrists, who despite their best efforts, haven't managed to more than a few dozen US civilians in the Continental United States since 9/12. It was us.. We, Republicrat and Demoblican alike, created post-9/11 America. The time marker was 9/11, and it had nothing to do with religion or politics.
Yakov Smirnoff showed us the only nonviolent way to deal with totalitarians: it starts by mocking them and reminding others of the contrast between totalitarianism and freedom. The meme must be "In post-9/11 America..."
tl;dr:
"In pre-9/11 America, I was free to express political opinions using my own nickname instead of being anonymous coward! In post-9/11 America, we're all free to express opinions using our real names, even when we post as anonymous cowards! What a country!"
Doesnt that pretty much defeat SSL? And what on earth would make you believe that they weren't compromised.
most tin-star sheriffs don't want anybody else doing their snooping. lot of that going on in the InterClouds these days.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I agree. It is despicable that my boss can order me about via email.
"NSA America" or "fascist America" would be better. Some people get justifiably offended when one throws around causal references to the Nazis. It desensitizes people to the Holocaust and their mass murders of Roma, Slavs, homosexuals, etc.
The Nazis were a special breed, much worse than anything that exists in our privileged world today, except perhaps in Syria and a few other places. To compare modern states to theirs is disingenuous.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
This explains why so many nations are behind.
Instead of worrying about the routing, they should be pushing for all clients to encrypt the contents (not web-based either). Worse, they should be getting off windows and Macs, and moving to Open Source such as Linux and BSD. In addition, the hardware should be produced in their own nations with Logic chips from their nation or the west, instead of China. The bios should be openbios on flash ram that was produced local.
But focusing on the server shows how poorly thought out their IT is.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Great, they key is signed and you agree to trust it. Then somebody steps into the middle on the next connection attempt and hands you a new key. Signed by a trusted authority that has been compromised. Does your client check the manually accepted keys before the CA signed keys? Does it do a redundancy check? Or does it just merrily proceed and let you give the MITM your password.
I really dont think the client is checking to see if the key changes. And that would be a very bad thing.
EXACTLY. Their email will still be clear-text, which is how foolish these ppl are. Heck, they still have a boat load of chinese networking equipment in their telcos.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
great Indian gov't is worried falsely US ISP's would never share data with anyone and all the hops going through other countries are just as safe as in US... o wait.
LOL; Yeah, lets see. The USA spies on less than .01% of their citizens, and yet, it is nazi america, while China, germany, india, etc attempt to spy on 100% of their citizens and other nations, but they are free. Yup, makes sense their comrade.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sadly, there is a strong truth to what you are saying. We are no where near as bad as China, Iran, venezuela, Germany, Italy, etc. in terms of spying on our citizens. IOW, nearly all other nations are closer to 'nazi' than is America.
However, there is no doubt that America IS controlled by businesses and wealthy, which really is as close to fascism as it comes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually no, GWB would only have been attacked by the Left for the most part
Like, you know, almost the entire mass media.
he Left is naturally suspicious of police and spying
Tell that to the Stasi.
The left are only suspicious of police and spies they don't control. They love police and spies who can be used against their opponents.
If you think that Obama is responsible for this AND you are American educated, then you are far more indicative of a horrible education, combined with neo-con/tea-bagger propaganda.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I worked on this shit under W. And I can tell you that you neo-cons would be screaming that this was all good. The one being crucified is O for the shit that you neo-cons (and in this particular case, myself), did.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sorry about my poor reading skills. I dont know enough about a new CA to be able to tell if this would work.
If you're still speaking English, I can assure you that the intelligence and military complex are doing their job adequately.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You know why the NSA has gone to wiretapping US communications? Because they're done tapping into all of the international communications.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This leads to a new avenue of attack on NSA snooping. Presumably some of the data being intercepted is copyrighted works belonging to big media. So all we have to do is convince the media companies that massive copyright infringement is happening, sit back, and enjoy the popcorn.
FYI, in communist countries Right wing is the communist and pro-government party, you are comparing apples and oranges. Actually when you do a survey of people self-proclaimed leanings and opinions, right wing tends to mean accepts authority and left wing tends to mean helping people as individuals.
I am pretty sure I hear plenty of complaints about the NSA out of so called left wing media, the only different is I hear it out of right wing media also now.
Where did you get the idea the mass media is all left wing, was it because you were told so by Fox, Limbaugh, Glen Beck, the Wall Street Journal.... ...really how many TV, news papers and radio stations does right wing need to be mass media too?
Of all the inherently useless and broken protocols in use today SMTP email takes the cake.
Anyone can impersonate anyone else with impunity. Phishing and PC zombification via Email is boundless.
Anyone can send you whatever useless garbage they want without your consent.
No useful security of any kind.
Inability to transmit large content and no way to facilitate realtime communication.
Message delivery is a crapshoot thanks to hapazard proliferation of automated filters with minds of their owns.
The failure of SMTP on all levels and massive operational costs it has incurred for administrators and users is mind boggling.
Spy on me all you want (my own govt, NSA, whomever)... Nothing's gonna happen except losing some storage and time! As for the laws that allow these kinds of unethical behaviour to go on, as long as we (people of the world) remain ignorant and divided by and large, there's nothing that can really be done. We *need* carrot-and-stick rulers and hence that's what we get. If the world were to become all nice and a paradise tomorrow it'll be too good for most of us, and we'd fuck it up and bring it down to the current level soon enough. So meanwhile people are fighting with various means to educate and enlighten on the one hand, and take corporates and governments to courts on the other hand, but this is going to be a long struggle. Unethical digital behaviour is *nothing* compared to the unethical real-world behaviour and no one's even been able to do anything about the latter yet...
I'm a libertarian. Not a "neo-con" I can't stand the neo-cons and more than I can stand the neo-communists of the left.
I can assure you, that I opposed the patriot act, and still do, for exactly the reason we find in the NSA scandal of today. Those who give up liberties for securities.... and all that.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Then you of all people should know the pro defense element of the Republicans would absolutely have come to GWB defense, and in fact did while the Democrats were complaining about the Patriot act in the first place. BTW, they are kind of coming to defend the program under Obama also, just not very strongly, and the libertarian wing is much more emboldened
The leopards have not changed their spots. Take the Tea Party for example, it is not that they were somehow pro deficit and tax during the Bush years, it is that they did not see their way clear to grabbing their muskets, tri-corner hats and protesting in public until Obama. This is kind of the same thing. I will agree that Left wingers are not as noisy as they would have been with Bush, but there is no doubt they have been complaining about the NSA also. OTOH the Republicans are doing the same thing in reverse. It is more of a volume control thing on both sides.
What is key is no one, right now, is willing to invest in supporting Obama on NSA spying. His own party dislikes it and the natural allies of defense, defense minded Republicans, wonâ(TM)t help. Thus this is a good chance to get something done on the issue.
Under advisement; both are perfectly serviceable substitutes and sidestep invocation of Godwin's idiotic law.
Parenthetically, the persons you mention as being offended can, with all due respect, stuff it. The horrors perpetrated by the Nazis were anything but exclusive. Talking about the Armenian Genocide or the Rwandan Massacre does not desensitize rational people about the Jewish Genocide; rather the contrary IMO. Calling an officious prick a Nazi does not trivialize Nazism.
It is crucial that we never regard the Nazis as some kind of unique aberration. 1930s-1940s Germany was anything but a unique situation which "regular good people" need not fear will ever happen "at home". Not recognizing this makes it more likely that the societal train wreck seen there recurs - as it has ("precurred" as well as recurred) all too often.
Was it a problem to follow a common sense and an accepted international laws? To wiretap only the criminals on a court order? With discipline and self-restraint?
Such irresponsible behavior harms the US companies and the Internet network in general.
"Others do it..", but the USA is the leader, it had to show an example.
Every regime fears transparency and hates people who can think out of the box. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/untouched-by-justice/article4340725.ece
Casteism
split internet per major power. There have already been voices in europe about this, this might give a little more incentive and fuel that fire again. Wether thats a good or bad thing my crystal ball wont say
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?